Decoratiing

Is it just me, or does it seem like posts lately are about things gone awry one after the other? I don’t recall breaking a mirror recently, or crossing a black cat’s path; not that we believe in that sort of thing at all. Nonetheless, this happened:

Yep. Another one bit the dust. If you remember our silhouette plate wall looked like this after we completed it in June:

A mere 4 months later and we’ve lost two plates; the clear monogram plate and now the Michael plate. The monogram plate I stuck to the wall using mounting tape, so I wasn’t shocked that it fell. I also wasn’t that sad about it, either. I knew I could easily replicate it. (I bought the clear plate at Wal-Mart for a few dollars.) The platter, on the other hand, now that I’m sad about. I found that platter at a thrift store for $3. When I saw it, I immediately grabbed it and hid it in my cart for fear that someone might try to take it from me. It was that awesome.

I hung the platter the same way I did the other silhouette plates, I Gorilla Glued a picture hanging bracket to the back of it.

This is the same method I used to hang two plates on our gallery wall in the living room 2 years ago. I’ve never had a problem with them, so I assumed that the picture hangers would work for this wall as well. I’m guessing that the platter was just too heavy for the glue + hanger, and/or that the heat played a role as well. (We’ve been cutting back on AC use, so it’s gotten pretty warm in there over the last few weeks of summer.) Whatever the cause, I wasn’t taking the chance that it would happen to the other plates, so I took them all down until I could find a better solution.

I was searching for actual plate hangers online, when I found these guys on Amazon.com:

They come in varying sizes and hold different weights, so I decided to give them a try. After all, they’re “safety assured”. Well, we shall see. I’ve been to the thrift store again a few times, but I haven’t found a replacement platter yet. Sigh. I’ll let you know how the hangers work and all that jazz, once I find another platter. That’s assuming I ever do. Also, I just want to say, that I’ve tried very hard to refrain from saying “a platter for Michael’s face” or making any really bad plate / wall related puns. Or at least I didn’t point them out to you. Even in sad times, you’ve got to find the pun in life.

Tomorrow, July 23rd, will be Michael and I’s 10th wedding anniversary. How that seems likes such a long time and a short time all at the same time is unknown. Ours is that of a labyrinthine tale…

Just kidding. Whirlwind might be a better description. One night in 2004, I was killing time on Myspace. That’s right, Myspace. I had just left a comment on the page of the band Earthsuit, which had played at my church camp a few summers earlier — This is getting all kinds of nerdy, isn’t it? Anyway… After commenting, I was reading the other comments and I clicked on the commenter right below mine. I had no idea who he was or what he even looked liked. (His profile photo was of him holding a guitar, and wearing a baseball hat with his head down.) Something about his views and dreams in his “About Me” section sounded very similar to my own 20-year-old, idealistic views, and dreams. So I did something I typically would never do, and never have done again, I added him as a friend. Undoubtably, one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. He’s the only stranger that I’ve ever added to my friend list. I also sent him a message introducing myself and explaining why I, some person he didn’t know, added him as a friend. I didn’t think anything of it. I figured if anything I might get a cool friend out of it. Then he messaged me back.

Then I messaged him. And he messaged me. This went on for a few weeks, before we started chatting on AIM. Then after about a month we had our first phone call. After countless phone calls and about 2 months, we met for the first time. He drove from Austin to Louisiana for the weekend, and stayed in a hotel, because my parents didn’t want some guy I met on the internet staying at our house. The night he arrived, I had to work until 10pm. We had plans to go out after that, but he showed up at my work to bring me a rose. The first time I saw him I said to myself, “Am I looking into the eyes of my husband?” Something else I’d never experienced also happened, as I got to know him, it seemed as though I had always known him. As if every date, every conversation was just reconnecting with an old friend.

After 3 months of dating, he asked me to marry him on January 1, 2005. After 7 months we were married, in a small ceremony in my hometown in Louisiana.

(We honeymooned in Georgia; not something I would recommend doing in July.)

And in some amazing way, Grace has found us here 10 years later.

(This photo was made using a collection of our photos on minted.com)

Photos have been a big part of documenting the last 10 years. Michael is better about taking photos than I am, but we have gotten professional photos taken to mark a few milestones.

We had photos taken in 2010 to document how our family had changed in 5 years. We also tried to incorporate meaningful items in the photos to show the change.

In this photo we were flipping through our wedding album:

(Photo by Ziem Photography)

In this photo you can see the reflection in the mirror of my wedding dress hanging in the background:

(Photo by Ziem Photography)

In 2013 we had more photos taken to document Emerson being added to the family. For these photos we each brought along an item that was important to us or represented us in some way. A guitar for Michael, my necklace and the rotary telephone belonged to my grandmother (she had passed away just 2 years earlier), Akira brought Meenoo (Cajun for kitty), the crochet cat she’s had since she was a baby, and for Emerson we brought the Super Grover doll that he was obsessed with at the time.

(Photo by Jeremy Davis)

These are some of my favorite photos we have ever had taken. We need to have more photos taken with Eleanor, but our friend Jeremy isn’t doing photography anymore, and I kind of don’t want anyone else to take photos for us.

(Photo by Jeremy Davis)

On our mantle we have a photo of the shop in Portland, Maine where we bought souvenirs while on our first family vacation. We also have the sheet music to At Last by Etta James, which was the first song we danced to as husband and wife. (I didn’t have a sheet of paper big enough to fit the frame I wanted to use for the song, so I cut up a cereal box, white washed it, and printed the sheet music on an adhesive transparency. Never stop workin’ what ya got!)

Above our bed, I framed the photo that our very talented friend, Jacklyn, drew for us. And I also have the poem She Walks in Beauty that Michael read to me on a surprise picnic in the park when we were dating. (I still need to add something to the frame on the end.)

So here we are 10 years after, “I do.”

Life is beautiful.

How are you adding meaning to your home? Do you have an favorite pictures, gifts or displays? Leave us a comment and let us know!